Strava age demographics and age-related performance drop-off

DeVlaeminck

Lookyhere wrote:

a RR down here 54yo, regularly mixes it up in BC 2/3/4 races and gets top 10s. not age related either.

My theory is that as we age we also get lazy, stop doing the really hard efforts and are content with longer easier rides

Of course we all slow down with age but have a read of Joe Friels Fast over Fifty

There are fast riders over 55 but the fact the 54 year old mixing it with second cats is notable suggests they aRe the exception rather than the rule. At 24 that 54year old would probably have been winning those 234s and mixing it with elites and first cats.

I don't buy that we get lazy as we get older there is a deterioration in the level we can achieve from some time in our 30s which by mid 50s has become significant. We can see that in pro cycling as riders rarely hold their best form much past 35 - if there is a drop off by then it's hard to argue that the decline over another 20 years isn't entirely down to age rather than attitude.

Lookyhere

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Lookyhere wrote:

a RR down here 54yo, regularly mixes it up in BC 2/3/4 races and gets top 10s. not age related either.

My theory is that as we age we also get lazy, stop doing the really hard efforts and are content with longer easier rides

Of course we all slow down with age but have a read of Joe Friels Fast over Fifty

There are fast riders over 55 but the fact the 54 year old mixing it with second cats is notable suggests they aRe the exception rather than the rule. At 24 that 54year old would probably have been winning those 234s and mixing it with elites and first cats.

I don't buy that we get lazy as we get older there is a deterioration in the level we can achieve from some time in our 30s which by mid 50s has become significant. We can see that in pro cycling as riders rarely hold their best form much past 35 - if there is a drop off by then it's hard to argue that the decline over another 20 years isn't entirely down to age rather than attitude.

Well no actually, elites didnt exist back then, it was 123/J but i take your point, he was a top national rider, who i never quite managed to beat ha ha.

But what you and JGSI have nt acknowledged is that i never said age has nothing to do with it, i just think that as you age you also need to change your balance of training to slow this decline and too many riders are content with doing the opposite eg do longer riders at the expense of the far harder efforts.

neeb

Clearly there is some decline due to age alone, otherwise we would be seeing 50 year olds and above in the pro peloton.. The question is whether it's necessarily profound and with big elements of non-linearity (e.g. a sudden bigger decline after a certain age) or just fairly small and very gradual. Just a tiny difference will be enough to prevent someone competing at the very top level against younger people of course.

I'm going to try my damnedest to keep my current FTP p/w ratio for the next five years.. I'll stick a reminder in google calendar to post back on this thread in five years time to say if I was successful or not.. ;-)

reacher

DeVlaeminck wrote:

Lookyhere wrote:

a RR down here 54yo, regularly mixes it up in BC 2/3/4 races and gets top 10s. not age related either.

My theory is that as we age we also get lazy, stop doing the really hard efforts and are content with longer easier rides

Of course we all slow down with age but have a read of Joe Friels Fast over Fifty

There are fast riders over 55 but the fact the 54 year old mixing it with second cats is notable suggests they aRe the exception rather than the rule. At 24 that 54year old would probably have been winning those 234s and mixing it with elites and first cats.

I don't buy that we get lazy as we get older there is a deterioration in the level we can achieve from some time in our 30s which by mid 50s has become significant. We can see that in pro cycling as riders rarely hold their best form much past 35 - if there is a drop off by then it's hard to argue that the decline over another 20 years isn't entirely down to age rather than attitude.

For me theirs a mind shift, its much harder to punish yourself continuously in training as you get older, i'v been training since i was 13 years old, not only does the body age it changes and this is linked to what you can make yourself do, putting odd examples up of someone doing something exceptional is not what will happen to the vast majority of athletes. For sure it can be done, its just a lot more painful than when you are younger not to mention the recovery is way more difficult which in turn makes the training harder to do.

mamba80

I know the guy in Q, he isnt anything exceptional but what he is very very hard working in all he does, not just cycling. it helps he has the experience too to ride conservatively when needed in a race and he loves his bikes! But hi lighting his achievements goes to show that we can all slow the decline, its just that those with talent and attitude can slow it down a bit more.

For me, as i ve aged, it is as Looki says, you nned to change your training, after years of cycling you ve already an exceptional base, so why spend hours on that? esp if most of your rides or events are less than 3 hours.
Muscle loss is another thing to consider as is weight gain which seems to affect most of us into middle age.

Its a battle against the inevitable lol

reacher

Training hard and doing punishing workouts is all fine and dandy when your young and making progress then comes the point where the progress stops, not too bad to keep on training, but then comes an age where your slipping backwards and every single effort you make is aimed at stopping that slide, that's when it's going to cull the weak from the strong mentally

jgsi

Any 60 + geezers racing tomorrow?

smylynyoda27

Hmm, maybe they should try handicapping based on age category, like Nastar for alpine snow skiing?

Darius_Jedburgh

dabber said:

Well some of us use Strava... I'm in the "65 and over" category and wish they would introduce a 70+ category as I reckon the old legs need a bit of encouragement

I tnink there is, but you need Premium to see it.

dabber

FrankYates said:

dabber said:

Well some of us use Strava... I'm in the "65 and over" category and wish they would introduce a 70+ category as I reckon the old legs need a bit of encouragement

I tnink there is, but you need Premium to see it.

There is now Frank, but not back in 2017 when this thread was originally started.

Darius_Jedburgh

OOPS. Should have paid more attention 🤬

zest28

There are some fast oldies here in this area who ride those 45 km/h e-bikes.

I sometimes catch them sitting on my wheel and I have seen them doing it to other riders too.

So it is a good thing they don’t use Strava as it is cheating.

Other oldies that I see usually do not ride for performance but they just have a good time. They just do very long distance at a low pace. Nothing wrong with that.

I actually have huge respect for a 90 year old rider I saw together with his wife and a super old bike from the 50’s I think. Since we are in the middle of nowhere, he must have done atleast 50km. And he looked quite weak so it was a huge effort of him. I assume he made it back (so atleast 100km he must have done that day with a crappy old bike)

davidof

zest28 said:

There are some fast oldies here in this area who ride those 45 km/h e-bikes.

I sometimes catch them sitting on my wheel and I have seen them doing it to other riders too.

So it is a good thing they don’t use Strava as it is cheating.

There is an ebike category for ebike rides.
See a lot of 55+ on eMTBs locally now - they are probably the only people who can afford them.
I'm now in the 55+ category :-( but still improving.

davep1

I'm in the 55 category too. Most of my pbs were 6-7 years ago, I haven't worked out why. Nearly everyone I know around my age uses Strava, but not many go out looking for KOMs, we all know the kiddies thirty years younger than us will be taking those.
I mainly compare myself to myself, and my immediate friends, and I don't normally bother with filtering by age or weight.
I use a Giant Neostrack bike computer and have noticed it drops out going through wooded sections, much more than the Garmin I used before would. If you know your efforts aren't going to be recorded, it's hard to make that effort!
Ditchling Beacon, the pros went up on the Tour of Britain in just under 4 minutes. The over 55s KOM is 30 seconds behind, and I'm 2 and half minutes behind that!

kevin_stephens

I’m 62 and have been using Strava for quite a few years. I’m please if my PBs are 2/3 up the overall field. When I paid for Premium I was surprised to see the 2/3 still applied to my age group. I still get the occasional PB because maybe I’m training harder and started using a turbo. Over the period I’ve reduced my max HR from 186 to 178 so interesting that it doesn’t seem to be a limitation.

neeb

https://forum.bikeradar.com/discussion/comment/20173091#Comment_20173091

After posting this I left a note in Google Calendar to come back in five years time and report on my fitness decline from age 50 - 55. The reminder came and went (I was busy), but a mental note persisted, so here I am seven years later at age 57...

So, has my fitness fallen off a cliff? No, not at all. I would say that my FTP is more or less the same for the same amount of riding / training. I have noticed a slight drop-off in the VO2 max ranges over the last two or three years, perhaps. Nothing really dramatic, but I do find it more difficult to match the PBs I set a few years ago. My HRmax is maybe about 5 bps lower. But it's all fairly subtle. It's perhaps more difficult to motivate myself to go on rides that are both hard and long. Perhaps that's my body telling me something?

I was still setting 10 mile TT PBs on the road bike last year, although I don't think I'd ever done one in 2017 and every year I add something else to make myself a little more aero.. 😉

Strava segments? Again, I've perhaps felt a little less motivation to target them, but this will remind me... 😃

davebradswmb

As a 63 year old I thought I would share my experience. I have cycled all my life, I rode with a touring club when I was a teenager until I discovered beer, cigarettes and girls, but I have pretty much always commuted by bike and I still did the odd solo ride now and again. I started riding with a club again 10 years ago. I don't use a turbo and I don't have a power meter so mostly the only way I have of seeing my progress is on Strava. I only judge myself on climbs, there are too many variables on the flats, and where I have made conscious efforts I am still improving. I have been regularly wearing an HRM for the past 8 years, at first I thought my max was 182, but that ended up being revised up to 185 over the first couple of years, and I hit 185 again earlier this year. I also did a 10 mile time trial a few weeks ago on a course that I rode last year. Conditions were very similar and I took 33 seconds off my time.

I think that a big contribution to my continued improvement is the club rides. When I joined the club it was quite small, there was always supposed to be a fast group and a social group, but it was rare that there were enough strong riders turning up so usually we rode as a single group. Over the years the club has expanded and we now have some younger members (less than 50 years old LOL). We often have 5 or more groups out on the weekend rides, 2 of which are billed as fast group a and b. I am still able to ride in fast group a, I usually am just hanging on at the start of the ride when everyone is feeling fresh and keen, but my endurance comes into play towards the end of the ride when most of the others have burnt their matches.

I don't expect that this will last forever but I am hoping that I can at least maintain my fitness for a couple more years when I move into the next age group on Strava!

ugo.santalucia

When I look at the age group rankings in CTT, at least for the hill climbs, where fitness matter more than in TT, then there is a bunch of 55-59 who are faster than the best 50-54. Over 60 performance drops and even more so over 65. Over 70 it goes down a cliff.

Moral, up to 60 you should be able to compete at a very high level. You won't win a sprint against a bunch of fast lads, but you can be in top 1% of a segment.

I am 51, kind of half way through the CTT rankings for my age group (and crucially also overall). Probably the most popular uphill segment I have done in anger is Puig Major. I am in the top 7% give or take. I obviously fare better in segments which are not so infested by PRO riders.

Guy who is 49 and ranked higher than me in the Hill Climb scene is in the top 2%.

davidof

https://forum.bikeradar.com/discussion/comment/21072462#Comment_21072462

Cycling is like cross country skiing and the drop off seems to come in the late 60s

Are endurance athletes like fine wine, or vinegar? (pistehors.com)

slowmart

There are an awful lot of my current club who are mid fifties to mid sixties. Most are 4-5k miles per year. A mixture of full time, semi and retired riders.

most of them are still setting PB’s. Each year the club rides are averaging higher speeds regardless of the group.

i was talking to one of the female riders who suggested 60 is the new 40. That had a ring of truth to it. Certainly knowledge and time are more in abundance than ever before.

im 57 and I’m still getting stronger and quicker. I train in the winter on a smart trainer , diet and recovery become increasingly important and I limit myself to two hard rides a week, otherwise I’ll put myself in a hole with my health.

no one is getting out alive but as age increases I certainly look to mitigate the effects of getting older.

veronese68

https://forum.bikeradar.com/discussion/comment/21084980#Comment_21084980

RE your "no one is getting out alive" comment, this article caught my attention.

https://road.cc/content/news/cycling-your-commute-can-lower-risk-death-47-309467

Really? Lower risk of death by 47%? I didn't realise cycle commuting could make you immortal.

pblakeney

https://forum.bikeradar.com/discussion/comment/21084980#Comment_21084980

I think the key point there was up to mid 60s. It is roughly at that point when the decline begins.